The pursuit of self

It is not wisdom or courage that drives us to do the things we do; it is their absence that dwarfs our hearts from the highest deeds. Thus we evolve from a nation enfeebled by fear and greed, to become the land besotted to lust and death’s every endeavour.

Our pursuit of self is to the detriment of the state. Despite our tiresome rant and supposed displeasure with the status quo, we remain the perfection of stagnant self-complacency.

We do not provide a focal point to inspire progress and ultimately advance its course. The Nigerian elite today perpetuates its parasitic existence. So does the country’s working class.

Despite our protests in the interest of the “average Nigerian,” reality proves us mostly, to be just another band of opportunists and frauds. The Nigerian working class indeed constitutes a scam. Without a doubt, this purportedly cheated class has evolved to become greater tormentors than the ruling class it despises.

If you look closely enough, you will find that we are cut from the same stock. We possess no superior culture or refinement save our proficiency in the decadent, which explains the preoccupation of the citizenry with acquisition of material wealth, fame and a degree of influence to make an obscene show of them.

This impacts negatively on the country’s social institutions of which many evolve like those chestnut burs which contain abortive nuts, perfect only for pricking the fingers. The downside of this abnormal situation manifests in the quality of the country’s citizenship.

Although the pioneer ruling class emerged to serve patronising and reactionary roles in response to the agenda of the country’s British colonialists, this small band of ‘patriots’ have since evolved along rudderless and incoherent shades of citizenship.

The Nigerian working class, on the other hand, evolved out of economic necessity, betraying conscious and desperate attempts by members of the class to align themselves with the ruling class against fellow impoverished.

The working class has since, evolved into a crooked class, comprising struggling professionals, unemployed youth, self-styled activists and opportunists persistently milking every impasse and volatile situation to their advantage.

With the inexorable expansion of the process of globalisation, they are bonding faster and inching together towards the absolute destruction of the nation’s populist movement.

The scale of the current crisis is no doubt immense and reflective of the contradictions that have been piling up in 58 years of the country’s independence. Not only has the Nigerian working class been severely depleted of men of potential and substance, its capacities to make new heroes of otherwise dormant youths is ruthlessly sabotaged.

Far removed from its limitless potentials in the pre-independence era, the country’s working class has become too handicapped to face the country’s tremendous challenges. Therefore, the citizenry’s capitulation to the country’s stringent living standards which continually manifests in the country’s leadership malaise, dying industries, unemployment, substandard education, healthcare and insecurity to mention a few.

Caught in the vortex of these dehumanising conditions, many social commentators have advocated a Soviet-styled or Middle-Eastern sprung revolt against the country’s ruling class. However, what such advocates have failed to note are the striking peculiarities that will hinder such an uprising in this part of the globe – basically, the absence of a cohesive and a fundamentally aware working class.

The most remarkable detail replicated in the various revolutionary actions that have taken place across the world is the reality of Freidrich Engels’ assertion that the state is nothing more than armed bodies of men, organised in the interest of the private property.

Historical tyrants like various characters constituting Nigeria’s conscienceless leadership are just individuals, who on their own are powerless, but they maintain their influence and might by imposing themselves on the citizenry via the apparatus of coercion and violence perpetrated through their nation’s armed forces.

But we have democracy or a semblance of it. Every segment of the citizenry is also affected by the pervasive harsh realities and inhumane conditions of our society. But our common miseries have failed to incite a rousing fearlessness to challenge and dispense of incompetent and tyrannical leaders through the ballot box at election time.

Despite our travails, we do not reason and identify with the aspirations of the revolutionary movement. We do not see ourselves as jointly oppressed; we are a nation of individuals, where each citizen unapologetically seeks his or her selfish interests.

What is deductible from these occurrences is that too many of us do not understand what it is to be patriotic and free. Thus Nigeria remains an independent nation constituted by citizenry who do not know yet how to be free. Despite his freedom from colonial tyranny, the average Nigerian is at present, slave to various classes of home-spawned political and economic oppression.

The working class today lacks an authentic culture of citizenship and manhood characteristic of the free. It comprises mostly mindless folk, incapable of evolving an acceptable standard of truth and identifying with it.

However, it’s probably due to the persistent hardship and extreme realities that they are forced to endure that the working class have become cowardly in reason and deeds. The success of any revolution is never entirely dependent on the presence of a bloodthirsty revolutionary front, but as current realities instruct, the existence of a conscientious, cohesive, patriotic, peaceful and formidable working class.

The existence of such peace-loving and dependable class of citizenry becomes imperative in a country like Nigeria where the ruling class seems completely lost to reason and justice.